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Shawn Greenlee, Faculty Lead ProfessorShawn Greenlee is a composer, sound artist, and Professor at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) where he leads the Studio for Research in Sound & Technology (SRST) and is the Department Head for Digital + Media. His recent work explores spatial audio, high density loudspeaker arrays, and erratic sound synthesis techniques. Greenlee has been active as a solo electronic / electroacoustic improvisor since 1997 and has toured extensively across the US and Europe. Conference and festival performances include New Interfaces for Musical Expression (2024 Utrecht, 2018 Blacksburg, 2015 Baton Rouge, 2014 London, 2013 Daejeon), International Computer Music Conference (2025 Boston, 2021 Santiago, 2018 Daegu, 2011 Huddersfield, 2005 Barcelona), BEAST FEaST (2017 Birmingham), PdCon16 (2016 New York), Cube Fest (2024, 2019, 2016 Blacksburg), Re-new (2013 Copenhagen), IN TRANSIT (2008 Berlin), and Elevate (2007 Graz), among others. Greenlee’s solo and group discography spans over fifty releases. He is a founding member of Landed, active since 1997 and known for its deconstructed rock, rhythmic noise, and intense live performances. From 1999-2001, he performed with Six Finger Satellite. Greenlee holds a Ph.D. in Computer Music and New Media from Brown University. ︎︎︎ shawngreenlee.com Michael Demps, Affiliated Researcher Associate Professor Michael Demps’ practice is fueled by a fascination with the nature of being—being in one’s body and more specifically, the social structures that confine the body’s ability to move through the world. It is important to understand that such experiences are different in different bodies in order to develop more empathetic relationships with one another, and celebrate more complex and nuanced ways of being. As an artist, Demps is dedicated to exploring notions of the Black interior through making. This interest permeates his collaborative and non-collaborative projects. During the past year he has had the opportunity to exhibit work that contends with the mapping of an interior interconnectivity to the collective through the personal and through somatic activation. His work ranges from abstract monoprint image generation and ghost printing to creating objects that serve as spiritual markings put forth to hold space for self-discovery, recovery and recuperation. These generative systems of making through recontextualization, improvisation and repetition serve as grounding values of his practice and exist in a fugitive space against authorship as a gatekeeper of racism and capitalism. The current cultural shift due to the pandemic has left Demps searching for ways to move his practice forward and engage with audiences in new ways.︎︎︎ mjdemps.studio Alex Chechile, Affiliated Researcher Critic Alex Chechile is a sound artist, composer, and electronic artist whose work develops in parallel with research in neuroscience, psychoacoustics, and the biomechanics of hearing.  With a particular interest in the relationship between sound and the body, his immersive compositions, installations, and performances aim to bring transparency to otherwise invisible processes in biological and technological systems. Questions that arise in his artistic work lead to formalized studies, and the results cyclically inform his sonic practice. Chechile is a leading researcher on the psychoacoustic study and creative application of difference tones, which are sounds that are generated in the inner ear and are perceived as localized within the head.  His work exhibits how difference tones expand layers of sonic material to include sounds outside the acoustic space, as well as how they create an additional nested layer of spatial depth between loudspeakers and ears.  Moving beyond the established two-tone difference tone paradigm, Chechile’s behavioral research shows up to seven additional types of difference tones are reliably perceived from multi-tone acoustic stimuli.  In his series of pieces On the Sensations of Tone (2010— ), Chechile explores the physicality of sound and spatial depth using difference tones, and his Ear Tone Toolbox is the first widely available collection of software and modular instruments for evoking the phenomenon.︎︎︎ alexchechile.com Mark Cetilia, Affiliated Researcher Critic Mark Cetilia is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice exists at the nexus of analog and digital technologies. Exploring the possibilities of generative systems, Cetilia’s work is an exercise in carefully controlled chaos. Over the past two decades, he has worked to develop idiomatic performance systems utilizing custom hardware and software, manifesting in a rich tapestry of sound and image. He is a member of the media art group Redux, recipients of a Creative Capital grant in Emerging Fields, and the electroacoustic ensemble Mem1, described by The Grove Dictionary of American Music as “a complex cybernetic entity” whose “evolving, custom-built systems are as important an aspect of the duo’s achievements as their ever-innovative sound.” Cetilia’s work has been screened / installed at the ICA (London), Oboro (Montréal), O’ (Milan), MoBY (Bat Yam), SoundWalk (Long Beach), and R.K. Projects (Providence). He has performed widely at such venues as Kunstraum Walcheturm (Zurich), the Borealis Festival (Bergen), Café OTO (London), STEIM (Amsterdam), LACE (LA), Roulette (NYC), Goethe-Institut (Boston), Issue Project Room (Brooklyn), Menza Pri Koritu (Ljubljana), Uganda (Jerusalem), Sound of Mu (Oslo), and Electronic Church (Berlin). His sound works have been published by MORE Records, YDLMIER, Lacryphagy, Interval, Radical Matters, Dragon’s Eye, IYNGES, and the Estuary Ltd. imprint, which he runs with his partner Laura Cetilia. He lives and works in Providence, RI, where he teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University.︎︎︎ mark.cetilia.org Stephen CookeSenior Academic Technologist (D+M Dept)Stephen Cooke is an interdisciplinary artist and technologist originally from Bath, England. He has worked in Digital + Media since 2009 and is deeply committed to helping emerging artists thoughtfully introduce technology into their work. Cooke’s work engages with technologies of discovery and destruction as well as the interplay of technology, art, culture and education. His research focuses on surveillance, autonomy and such systems of exploration and investigation as astronomical observation. He is well versed in a wide range of systems of making, materials and fabrication – analog and digital – including CNC milling and laser cutting. Femi Shonuga-Fleiming, Teaching Assistant Ifemiwale Shonuga-Fleming works with modular synthesizers, DIY electronics and various coding languages to discuss the organic within electronics and technology through sound art and composition. His work explores the intersections of sound and space though spatial audio and architectural design as an experimental practice. He’s most interested in generative systems, chance and synthesized organic textures within sonic soundscapes. Femi is currently studying architecture and creative computation at RISD. ︎︎︎ femishonuga.com Chuner Wang, Teaching AssistantChuner Wang is an interactive artist dedicated to experimental and cross-disciplinary creation. She regards technology as a malleable medium and explores the fusion of electronic music synthesizer design, installation art, and improvisational sound to discover new possibilities of expression at the intersection of technology and art. Her works focus on the perceptual integration and reconstruction of the blurred boundaries between technology and organic bodies. Wang is currently studying in Digital+Media at RISD.︎︎︎ portfolio site Salma Hassaan, Teaching AssistantSalma Hassaan is an Egyptian-German interdisciplinary artist and designer based between Los Angeles, California and Providence, Rhode Island. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Painting & Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Digital+Media at Rhode Island School of Design. Her work explores concepts of play, intimacy, and human connection through interactive sculptural installations. Inspired by nature, technology, and shared narratives, her work blurs the boundaries between perception and time, challenging viewers' relationships to the self and our natural environment. Her work has been exhibited in a wide range of international venues, including Sol Koffler Gallery (Providence), Qatar America Institute for Culture (Washington, DC), Labryinto Festival (Costa Rica), Dawayer Festival (Egypt), The Egyptian Pavilion at Wanted Design (New York City), Photo Cairo 6 (Egypt), Virginia Commonwealth University (Qatar), and Katara Art Center (Qatar).︎︎︎ salmahassaan.com/ Will Johnson, Visiting Researcher (Brown Univ)Will Johnson is a multimedia artist and composer from New York City. Themes from past work include black digital memory, phantom archives and the coded poetics of audio engineer-speak. He is the recipient of the Fellowship for Sound Art/Composition from the Jerome Foundation and the McKnight Foundation’s Fellowship for Musicians. His commercial work includes sound design and composition for Acura, GAP, Beats Electronics, HBO and vocal contributions for Grammy-winning best electronic album Skin. Live performances by Johnson have been commissioned by Lincoln Center, the Kitchen, 92Y and Mass MoCA. Recent collaborative work includes Eternal September (with composer Bill Britelle) and an ongoing work with performer Okwui Okpokwasili that began during her 2022 artist-in-residence at MoMA. His multichannel audio and sound installation work has been featured in artist Hebru Brantley’s Nevermore Park and as part of the University of Johannesburg’s 2022 Black Sonic exhibition. Johnson is a doctoral candidate at Brown University in the Music and Multimedia Composition program. ︎︎︎ wills.video James May, Visiting Researcher (Brown Univ) James May (b. 1994, Pittsburgh, PA) is a composer, improviser, teacher, and writer. His work explores unfurling, fragile spaces, generating unpredictable systems in which performers can dwell. He combines approaches such as improvisation environments, live electronics, notated scores, field recordings, extended vocal technique, and text, often inspired by the natural world or other art forms—especially film photography and literature. James is a member of Versipel New Music (New Orleans), has published writing in Sound American and RTÉ Culture, and was a 2024 Ucross Artist in Residence. He has collaborated on performances and recordings with Versipel, Apply Triangle, Hypercube, Chamber Choir Ireland and Paul Hillier, Birdfoot Festival, New Music on the Bayou, Stephanie Lamprea, Will Yager, Jamie Monck, the San Francisco Choral Artists, and Longleash. James was one of 12 recipients of the 2018-19 George J. Mitchell Scholarship, funding an MA in Experimental Sound Practice at University College Cork; prior, he earned an MM in Composition from the University of Louisville, and a BMus in Theory & Composition and a BA in English from The College of Wooster.︎︎︎ jamesmaycomposer.com Isaac Barzo, Visiting Researcher (Brown Univ)Composer, improviser, and sound artist Isaac Barzso strives to explore the activity of placemaking and the transfer of data and methods of communication between different mediums, aiming to create music and multimedia art that exists in the space between. Heavily influenced by disparate aspects of pop culture, such as the textures of post-rock music and the structures of literature and film, his music often utilises techniques within computer-generated or computer-assisted composition to close the gap between acoustic and electronic media. Isaac’s work has been featured at venues such as the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, SEAMUS, NYC Electronic Music Festival, and ICMC. In 2023 he graduated with distinction (M.M.) from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.︎︎︎ isaacbarzso.com/ Sofia Rocha, Visiting Researcher (Brown Univ) Sofía Rocha writes music of uncompromising emotional intensity while exploring cognition, randomness, rhythm, and counterpoint in post-tonal frameworks. Recent projects include new works for the International Contemporary Ensemble, Emory University Symphony Orchestra and New York Youth Symphony. Sofía is a PhD student in Music and Multimedia Composition at Brown and received her master’s in composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, studying primarily with Yotam Haber and Chen Yi. She received her BA from Gettysburg College, studying with Avner Dorman.︎︎︎ sofiarochamusic.com Ed Osborn, Visiting ResearcherProfessor (Brown Univ) Ed Osborn works with many forms of electronic media including installation, video, sound, and performance. His pieces feature a tactile sense of space, movement, image and aurality combined with a precise economy of materials. Osborn has been a Guggenheim Fellow and resident in the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. He has presented his work at SFMOMA (San Francisco, CA), the singuhr-hörgalerie (Berlin, Germany), the Berkeley Art Museum (Berkeley, CA), Artspace (Sydney, Australia), the Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane, Australia), ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany), Kiasma (Helsinki, Finland), MassMOCA (North Adams, MA), the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT), and the Sonic Arts Research Centre (Belfast, Northern Ireland). Prior to joining Brown he taught in numerous institutions including UC Santa Cruz and the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, Germany. He teaches courses on sound art, physical computing, and electronic media.︎︎︎ roving.net/
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